In a lesser filmmaker’s hands, HALF
NELSON could have easily degenerated into on of those shamelessly
saccharine and would-be inspirational teacher/mentor high school
melodramas. They seem to be a definite dime a dozen these days.

You know, the kind of cheap, manipulative
claptrap story that has a socially outcast teacher that none of his/her
colleagues accept or admire who is able to forge a winning relationship
with his rather troublesome students. Furthermore, the charismatic
and rebellious teacher is able to instill a larger sense of purpose in
his otherwise apathetic pupils, so much so to the point where they all
have epiphanies and go on to much more rewarding and fulfilling lives.
I like to say that these films suffer from DEAD POET'S SYNDROME, named
after the film of the same relative name.

A variation on this genre is the inner city high school
drama, which further sees other permutations - such as the inner city/sports
genre - where games like basketball are thrown into the mix for added
dramatic padding. Ripe with annoying clichés, warmed over and unrealistic
personas, and woefully manufactured moments of enriching euphoria, these
films desperately try to tug at audience heartstrings to the point of
nauseating overkill. The teachers in these films, despite being mutinous on a basic educator and
curriculum level, are usually overwhelmingly good people who never
attain popularity with colleagues, but they sure do with their students.
The students, meanwhile, are typically a ragtag group of societal misfits
that the teacher – no matter what – will fix for the better.
Do
these formulas sound familiar?

Perhaps this is why HALF NELSON is such a quiet, understated,
and masterfully mounted drama. It takes the standard elements of these
motivational inner city high school flicks and wickedly turns them up on
their heads. It is unlike any contemporary high school film that
I have ever seen. HALF NELSON goes against the grain of witless and moronic
formulas that permeate these types of films and instead goes for
gritty verisimilitude at every corner. People don’t necessarily change for the
better at the end of this film. Characters are not narrowly defined as
black and white entities. Life, as a whole, is structured in a much
more decided grey areas. The film's world view is - for the most part
- fairly bleak.

Perhaps even more crucially, HALF NELSON does not involve
downtrodden people that are motivated to achieve ultimate victory either on
the school front or athletic front. There is no big game for the
underdogs to win against all odds in the final act. There is no
teacher that inspires his kids to be all that they can be. In short,
it is how HALF NELSON is so rigidly atypical that makes it special.
The film is about deeply flawed individuals who all try to make some
semblance of their lives and how they fit into the big picture. The
film is undeniably fascinating for looking at the subjugated – warts and all
– by not sugarcoating them in the slightest. These are people that may
not be able to be saved, nor do they want any spiritual rescuing.

It is that heightened moral ambiguity that makes the film all
the more enticing and intriguing. Beyond that is the unique handling of the
main teacher role in the film. He is not perfect. He does not conduct
himself flawlessly in and out of the classroom. He does – to a small degree
– genuinely inspire his students, but not in the awe-inspiring ways that
other genre films showcase. More crucially, HALF NELSON’s educator is
arguably as emotionally damaged and troubled as his students. The fact that
he is a habitual crack addict only embellishes this point. The teacher –
played is an astonishing performance by Ryan Gosling – is neither Mr.
Holland from MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS or John Keating from DEAD POET’S SOCIETY.
No, the teacher in HALF NELSON is more like Travis Bickle with book smarts.

Like Bickle, Dan Dunne is a hopeless loner who does damaging
things to himself. Teaching is one of his few outlets for catharsis. He
does not look to change the world, but if he can get his inner city students
to start thinking about issues beyond their classroom, then he feels some
level of pride. Yet, Dan is unlike just about any movie teacher that I am
aware of. He dresses like a slacker with an untucked shirt, bad tie, and
has constant five o’clock shadow every minute of the day. He lives in a
drabby and dilapidated Brooklyn apartment that looks close to being
condemned. He looks sick all the time, kind of like he has not slept in
weeks. Maybe he hasn’t. As the film opens his alarm clock goes off, but it
appears that he has not slept. He is sitting up, in his underwear and
little else, in a drug hazed stupor after an apparent all-night cocaine
bender. He’s in a perpetual foggy state. This guy, obviously, is not every
parent’s idea of a good role model.

Yet, HALF NELSON is also about breaking down metaphorical
barriers that distance people with one another. Is Dan a despicable
person or teacher? Hardly. He is, in fact, a very good high school teacher. Sure, he
throws out the curriculum guides, but one obviously needs other methods to
communicate to his kids about history. His strategies and skills are
remarkably subtle and simplistic. He is cogent and gets his points
across incredibly clear. The character is astonishingly bipolar. When at
home or – amazingly – in the high school’s bathrooms or lounges, the guy is
an absolute drug-addicted basket case that looks for any angle to get high.
However, when he enters the classroom, he comes alive. Yes, Dan is a
terribly self-destructive figure that risks his livelihood, but he is a
gifted educator. Teaching, in an odd ways, is his medicine for his pain.

The students – who seem unaware that their teacher is an
addict – like and respect the man, even if he wanders into class looking
like the undead everyday. The same can’t be said of Dan’s fellow teachers,
who all seem to suspect that there is more to his extracurricular activities
that he is leading on. Things come to a fever pitch when – during one
night – Dan decides to go to a girl’s bathroom after a basketball game (he
is the coach) and starts to light up. Higher than a kite, he meanders in
and out of unconsciousness, but he sure seems to wake up when his student, Drey (in an equally thoughtful and brilliant performance by Shareeka Epps)
finds him. Shockingly, neither seems to make a big deal of it. He
matter-of-factly apologies to her, she accepts, he sobers up and drives her
home, during which she says good night and they part ways. It’s an odd
sequence, but it only highlights the despair and chaos that highlights these
peoples’ lives. In a dingy, decaying urban jungle, maybe it’s not a
surprise to see one's teacher as a drug addict.

They
soon form a bond, but it’s not one of those awful, one-note relationships
where both grow to accept each other with open arms. The exchanges between
the two are remarkable frank and honest. During one scene where he drives
her home after yet another unsuccessful basketball game, he tries to explain
his actions. The ref, it seems, was making bad calls all night. He used
variations of the f-bomb that most teachers should never use in front of
students, threw the ball in anger at the ref, quickly got kicked out of
the game, and later punched a wall and hurt his hand. Dan tries to cover
up his actions. She responds by saying, “It must have just felt good to let
it out.” Dan tells her, “Yeah, but there are other ways of ‘getting it
out.’” She corners him. “Like what you do,” she asks him. Dan knows he’s
cornered and knows she’s right. Later, he wisely points out, "One thing
doesn't make a man." He too has a good point. Yes, he is a man with deep
addiction problems and needs help, but he’s a good teacher and more decent than
his drug-induced lifestyle would let on.

Their relationship continues to grow to the
point where both seem to want to save the other but ultimately realize that
it might not be possible. Dan is a hopeless crack smoker that does not look
to end his bad habit. Drey, on the same token, also desires to engage
in a lot of shady activity with her new friend, a neighborhood drug dealer
(played with a slimy charisma by Anthony Mackie). Like Travis Bickle before
him, Dan wants to be Drey’s knight in shining armor. Two things impede his
quest. First, Drey does not appear to want saving. Second, Dan is actually a
client of the drug dealer, which makes his quest somewhat hypocritical.

HALF NELSON is a film of such uncompromising
authority and of unflinching sentiment. It does many things with a virtuoso
level of assuredness. It presents lower class Brooklyn neighborhoods and
schools (often not seen in films) and shows them in all levels of grungy
detail. The film has so much veracity with the way it presents its
crumbling environments. The film gets subtle nuances down perfectly as
well. Things like the fact that Dan never uses bed sheets, that his sink looks
like it’s never been cleaned, that the shirts he wears never looked ironed. Dan’s clothing
and home eerily reflect his borderline disillusionment. His life –
emotionally and physically – is in disarray.

Perhaps the hallmark of the film is in its
performances, and the film has two of the best of the year in Gosling and
young Epps. Gosling has been in a lot of lighter fare (he was good in the
romantic melodrama THE NOTEBOOK
and was also strong in other recent films
like THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND and THE BELIEVER). His performance in HALF
NELSON is a breathtaking revelation, like seeing a young Brando or DeNiro
beginning to show their strengths as performers of such powerfully
understated authority. Gosling’s performance as Dan is a textbook
exercise in careful, underplayed restraint. He never has to yell or overact
to relay emotions to the audience. He acts with his eyes and is able
to effectively communicate the most complex feelings with the most
limiting of physical jesters. He also wisely plays his role not as a
stereotypical druggie that is perpetually twitchy and looks like a loose
canon. There is a peculiar serenity and calmness to Dan, who often gets far
with his soft-spokenness to his students. Epps is also subtly strong in
her performance as she is able to stand her ground with her troubled
teacher. Both performances are the anchor of HALF NELSON and the rest build
on top of their solid foundation. Realistically, though, this is Gosling’s
film and his work reveals him to be one of the industry’s best young
actors. He does not play Dan as much as he
inhabits him. Note to Academy: don't overlook him next year.

HALF NELSON is an urban high school melodrama
that may be too much of a bitter pill for some viewers to stomach. It
approaches a level of realism and psychological complexity that is all but
void in other similar high school genre films, not to mention that the mentor/teacher
figure in the film is as emotionally ravaged as his students.
Furthermore, nihilism and desperation are awash in the film. The future
seems bleak and the chance of its characters bettering themselves seems
unlikely. This is a film about flawed people that want to reach out and
help others but don’t want to accept help when others deliver it. That’s
what makes the film work so well. It takes familiar themes and issues and
radically revamps them. With tight and confident direction, extraordinarily
commanding performances, and a narrative that avoids wretched clichés, HALF
NELSON emerges – paradoxically – as one of 2006’s most hopeful and
inspirational films. Despite its bleakness moral outlook, the film still
hints at –without directly showing – redemption after damnation.
The film is truthful and potent in a way few films are and it displays Ryan
Gosling as the actor to watch out for. He is so effortlessly
mesmerizing in the film that you kind of get lost in it and forget you're
watching an actor. In that way, HALF NELSON is a real out-of-body
experience. You're not just viewing the film, you're
experiencing it.